1992 Firefly

I have twice profiled the 1993 Firefly figure on this site.  I prefer the black on green look for the mold and find that Firefly to be among my favorite late Cobra characters.    However, my introduction to this sculpt was in December of 1992.  During my lunch hour at a local grocery store, I drove up to Toys R Us at the Castleton Mall in Indianapolis.  There, I bought my first G.I. Joe figures at retail since a lone Night Viper in the summer of 1990.  I acquired several figures.  The 1992 Gung Ho and General Flagg were two.  I know I bought the 1992 Destro as well.  They were joined by the 1992 Firefly: a figure I couldn't pass up due to the character and the awesome new rifle that was included with the figure.

Not much changed for me as 1992 started.  I still bought the Joe comics.  But, I didn't buy any toys.  And, what little money I did have to spend on collectibles was dropped at local sports card shops that were slowly going out of business, offering me a chance to buy many items I had long wanted for a fraction of their "book value".  In the fall, though, I went off to college.  Naturally, my interests drastically changed with the newfound freedoms of independent living.  With that independence, though, came newfound confidence.  I no longer really cared what people thought of me.  And, the idea of buying some G.I. Joe figures seemed plausible.

In December of that year, I was home for an extended Christmas break.  For some reason, all of my finals were done by Tuesday of the final week of school.  So, I went home early, got a job working in a local deli and then proceeded to work 10 hours a day for 6 days per week for the entirety of my break.  I needed the cash for when I went back to school.  But, I did decide to spend a little bit of my earnings on a few new G.I. Joe figures.  So, at lunch one day, I drove to the Toys R Us at the Castelton Mall in northern Indianapolis.  There, I was met with a massive crowd and a wall full of G.I. Joe figures that I had never seen before.  I didn't have a lot of time to choose some figures to buy.  So, went with characters whose names I knew or figures that seemed to have really cool accessories.

I know that I bought 6 figures in 1992.  I can not recall which I bought on that first trip to Toys R Us and which came later.  But, I bought three figures.  When I went to checkout, though, I got into a random line.  When I came up to the cashier, it turned out to be an old acquaintance with whom I had worked at a grocery store in 1990.  He had owned a sports card store for a short time in 1991.  I had about a third of his store for the cards I was selling.  As the market was crashing, though, the shop was short lived.  We had lost touch in 1992 as we both had different priorities.  We caught up for a quick minute.  I left the store with my purchases and never saw him again.  

With the newfound confidence of an "adult", these purchases in 1992 were the beginning of my collector phase.  Joe was no longer a childhood toy but now something to be enjoyed as a collectible.  I still only dabbled, though.  Money was one issue.  The second was that there was no place to buy toys in my college town.  There was a single K-Mart.  They had a SAW Viper with no accessories and one or two Sky Patrol figures whose parachutes had been torn out.  So, I bought only a handful of figures between 1992 and 1994.  The advent of Power of the Force II in 1995 changed that again and turned me into a full blown collector.  

When I saw this figure, the fact that it was Firefly got my attention.  While neon green wasn't a color that was overly common on my childhood Joes, it was in line with figures like Sci Fi and Airtight.  So, I didn't mind it.  And, the amazing rifle included with him was just too much to resist.  I had to buy the figure.  It was only upon getting home that I realized it was a pretty nice design.  I didn't have much time to really think about how I was going to use the figure, though.  I'd mess around with him from time to time.  But, I wasn't sure how he was going to fit into a collection, especially one where I still had a 1984 Firefly floating around in a red LEGO container in my closet.

In the summer of 1994, though, I sketched out some new Cobra characters on note cards while working at a boring real estate job.  One of these figures was a capable and brave fast attack commander.  He was also the confidant of my new, up and coming Cobra leader.  I wanted a figure that was different from what I had grown up with while also being worthy of representing my 2nd favorite new character.  And, this Firefly fit the bill.  He quickly became the face of Cobra combat operations, often riding high in the command post of a STUN.  Here, his bright color let the Joes know he was coming and there was still nothing they could do about it.  He was armored and carried a powerful, new weapon.  He was covered in grenades and explosives that would casually toss into targets as he zoomed past them.  And, should he ever get into close quarter combat, he carried a visible garrote to let you know that he wasn't afraid to simply kill someone with his bare hands.

The 1992 figures saw a limited production run.  While the figures were ubiquitous in 1992 and every toy store had a huge display of them for sale, they were not continued into 1993.  (With the exception of some leftover Roadblocks that were slapped on 1993 cards.)  Instead, 9 of the 12 carded 1992 figures (including Firefly) were repainted as new figures for 1993.  A 10th figure (Big Bear) was also released as a mail away.  Only Duke and Destro didn't get a new paint job.  Though, both of them were then released in 2000/2001.  This has lead to the 1992 series being a bit tougher to find on the secondary market than most people would imagine.  They're not rare.  But, some of the figures in the year take a lot more time to find than you'd think when you consider the figure's popularity.

The 1992 Firefly isn't overly accessorized.  His main gear is a well done rifle.  It's one of the cooler weapons in the line.  But, it's also neon green and that robs the weapon of the accolades it justly deserves.  After this, Firefly's calling card is a spinning top.  The top fits into a launcher and a green pull cord is used to launch the top.  It's an asinine contraption that's also fun as a toy.  But, it also helps lessen the popularity of Firefly.  One relatively unused aspect of the 1992 Firefly is that his grey highlights are a perfect match for the 1984 Firefly's backpack.  (The ubiquitous black Firefly gear from the early 2000's is also a perfect match for the 1993 repaint.)  So, a spare pack goes a long way to fill out the 1992 Firefly and make him more in line with his original saboteur specialty.  

The 1992 Firefly mold is really well done.  And, the quality is obscured by the neon green.  Hasbro repainted the figure just once in 1993.  The grey highlights of the 1992 figure were turned black.  It's probably a better figure.  But, the mold never appeared again.  In the early 2000's, though, Firefly's rifle started to appear with convention figures.  It is extremely likely that Firefly was available as a mold for Hasbro.  Imagine how much better the 2004 Urban Strike or, especially, the 2005 Crimson Guard set would have been with a 1992 Firefly mold repainted in the colors of the 1984 included with those sets.  But, Hasbro listened to select few people as to which molds were popular in the early 2000's and they would have never suggested the 1992 mold as an alternative to the 1984, even after the 1984 had been repainted half a dozen times.  I'd love this figure in the 1984 color scheme.  Or, really, anything substantially new.  But, that's probably never going to happen at this point.

1992 Fireflies can be a pain to track down.  While dealers will sell them in the $20 range, you can get mint and complete with filecard figures for about $10 on the open market.  The 1993 figure having identical accessories really helps to make completing the figure easy.  Carded figures can be had in the $30-$35 range, too.  It's a pretty good price for a single release year figure of a major character.  And, as neon figures have increased in popularity, the fact that Firefly remains cheap keeps him among the only really bright figures that you can still buy for non-inflated prices.  So, this remains a figure worth checking out for even the "post 1988 sucks" purists.